ESPE Abstracts

Short stature is diagnosed when height is significantly below the average of the general population for that person’s age and sex. To elucidate the factors that modify disease severity/penetrance in short stature, we have studied a three-generation family with SHOX deficiency. We have found that the retinoic acid degrading enzyme CYP26C1 is a modifier for SHOX deficiency phenotypes towards the more severe clinical manifestations (Leri-Weill dyschondrosteosis) and confirme...

Differences of sex development (DSD) occurs when the development of chromosomal sex, gonadal or internal/external genitalia is atypical. It has an incidence of 1: 1000-4500 live born children. New chromosomal array technologies (SNP-array) can analyze the genome of the individual providing information of copy number variation (CNV) of specific chromosomal regions helping to identified pathogenic variants that could explain the etiology of the DSD. This study aims to analyze th...

Background: Body mass index not allow to discriminate the proportional composition of the different body compartments: fat mass and fat-free massObjective: The aim of this study is to elaborate standardized values of the fat mass index (FMI) and fat-free mass index (FFMI) in healthy adolescents (both sexes) using anthropometric techniques in order to be available as reference standards in daily clinical practice.<p c...

The increasing prevalence of obesity and associated comorbidities worldwide is a major problem for national health care systems. For this reason, it is of importance to gain knew knowledge about the central regulation of body weight and to identify factors which are leading to an increased individual risk to gain weight. Despite large genome weight associations studies and related genetic risk scores, the regulation of inter-individual body weight variability remains elusive. ...

Introduction: Growth velocity is reduced in patients with GH deficiency and this may result in an increase in Body Mass Index (BMI). Treatment performed with Growth Hormone (GH) while accelerating growth velocity, might reduce BMI. The objective of this study was to evaluate BMI in patients with GHD at diagnosis, 1 y and 2 y after started treatment with GH and to compare if there is difference between the BMI of the patients with and without pituitary abnormalities.<p clas...

Background: Preterm newborns (PN) are at risk of developing congenital hypothyroidism (CH) with a high reported incidence (1:300 vs 1:2000 for at term newborns). The study's objective was to determine the TSH percentiles at neonatal screening (NS) in PN and to analyze the incidence of permanent and transient CH in this population.Materials and Methods: PN born in the Piedmont Region of Italy in the period 2019-2021 ...

Background: Phthalates are ubiquitous environmental contaminants and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Nowadays, they are considered reproductive toxicants and in-utero exposure is well documented, although evidence of early life exposure is scarce, and needs to be described. Aim of this study is to assess phthalate exposure and its changes over the first months of life in a cohort of healthy full term infants and their mothers from a restricted area of t...

Background: The activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis during the first months both in males(M) and females(F) is named as minipuberty. Urinary gonadotropins (uGn) represent an unexpensive and non-invasive method of assessing pubertal development and they have recently been used also for studying minipuberty.Aims of the study are: 1) to describe the urinary hormonal pattern (uLH, uFSH, testosterone – uT, oestra...

Bone fragility is a more typical condition of old age, linked to physiological aging. In pediatric age, on the contrary, it represents a rare problem, but more often has an underlying primary cause. This condition manifests itself in most cases with recurrent or abnormal fractures and bone deformities, with a limitation of mobility, bone pain and consequent reduction in the quality of life of the child. The great difficulty for the clinician consists in reaching a correct diag...

Hypothyroidism is the most common thyroid disorder in children. It usually presents with nonspecific symptoms, that can be mild and occur slowly over time, compromising a timely diagnosis, with possible effects on pituitary gland, multiple organs and growth. In case of long-standing unrecognized hypothyroidism, myxedema or myxedema coma can occur, rare but severe conditions. This case report describes an adolescent presenting with extensive trunk and neck swelling. After exclu...